RAW Converter Comparison / Challenge

William Loney wrote:

Interestingly enough, I have just finished doing some testing myself. A couple of my observations are fairly similar to yours, even though I chose a different method.

I didn't want to jack your thread, so I didn't post my images. I could, if you want.

I used Capture 1, ACDSee, X RAW Studio, and Affinity.

What I did differently, was I intentionally underexposed my test raw by a full stop so that I had a controlled example of being able to push my conversions one stop each. Other than that, I just added sharpening. No white balance adjustments; no highlight/shadow adjustments, etc.

To me, this gave me a better base for just RAW conversions, as opposed to conversion+ adjustments. I figured that any adjustments beyond what I did would be up to the users taste.

Comparing without making highlight/shadow adjustments etc. is really only comparing whoever came up with the different RAW processors' default import settings tastes. RAW files aren't images, and every RAW converter will apply it's own unique default processing with color profiles and tone curves which may produce a significantly different base conversion compared to other converters, but which can be easily changed to be similar to other converters (and more to your liking).

To get a good idea of which RAW editor will serve you best, you really ought to (IMO) compare them after you've tweaked each to get the best output.

My results?

Capture 1 and X RAW Studio were almost identical. ACDSee seemed a little 'flat,' compared to the first two, and Affinity was a little more saturated.

As far as I'm concerned, with a little effort, all could be made to appear almost identical with a little tweaking -but as I said, this would be editing, and not just converting.